by Arpan Varghese (Reuters) - The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index extended its slide to a fourth straight session to touch a near six-month low on Thursday, as rates fell for all vessel segments amid a seasonal slowdown in demand.
The overall index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, dropped by 38 points, or 3.3 percent, to 1,114 points, the … [Read more...]

By Blake Schmidt (Bloomberg) When 600 cryptocurrency enthusiasts set sail from Singapore on Monday night for their second annual Blockchain Cruise, the price of Bitcoin was hovering comfortably above $13,500.
By the time their 1,020-foot-long ship pulled into Thailand on Wednesday, for an afternoon of bottomless drinks and crypto-focused talks on a sun-soaked private beach, … [Read more...]

by Jonathan Saul, Arno Schuetze (Reuters) Top national lenders Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are stepping up efforts to offload distressed shipping loans, finance sources said, as the German banking system grapples with $100 billion in toxic debt from the sector.
While the shipping sector is showing signs of recovery after a near-decade long downturn, it is … [Read more...]

By Vera Eckert and Christoph Steitz (Reuters) German shipping group Hapag-Lloyd kept its outlook for the current year after its nine-month operating profit rose more than tenfold, narrowing the gap on Danish sector-leader A.P. Moller Maersk , which cut its forecast last week.
Shares in Hapag-Lloyd, fresh from its merger with Arab rival UASC that helped it to reach the … [Read more...]

LONDON (Reuters) - Gas exporting giant Qatar has all but sold out of winter supply after committing its spare output to China and South Korea, a development that could tighten Asia’s gas markets as the peak demand season bites.
Doha’s bumper sales will also ring alarm bells for other regions reliant on Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) such as Europe and may further … [Read more...]

by Stine Jacobsen (Reuters) - A.P. Moller-Maersk , the world’s largest container shipping group, cut the profit forecast for its core business on Tuesday after a costly cyber attack and a weaker than expected third quarter.
Maersk, which agreed to sell its oil and gas business to Total in a $7.5 billion deal this year, has to prove to investors that the firm’s … [Read more...]

by Jonathan Saul (Reuters) The leap in assets at Credit Suisse’s private bank to a record high this year has been aided by a key plank of the bank’s new strategy: lending money to the world’s ultra-wealthy.
Switzerland’s second-biggest bank is trying to lure more rich customers by helping them fund their businesses and lifestyles, with shipping, aviation and real estate loans … [Read more...]